Friday, November 23, 2012

I Just finished this logo illustration for Macalester College in St. Paul, Minnesota. They are a private liberal arts college and I was asked to do this little bit for their Glen Society. It was a fun little piece to work on and it was painted in Photoshop.

I really only use a couple of brushes and they are stock Photoshop brushes. I uses a soft round and a hard round for laying in big areas and I use #46 a lot because it looks and acts a lot like a bristle brush. Mostly I manipulate the properties of these brushes and I use hand made textures that I scanned to give it the organic quality I want. You have to use a Wacom tablet in order to make the brushes work properly. I posted a little about that here is you want to take a look: http://gregnewbold.blogspot.com/2011/05/painting-with-texture-in-photoshop.html.I try to make the painting feel as much like a real painting as I can. I start with an under wash, usually a warm color and then I just build on that. My sketch is on a multiply layer and I make broad color patterns on a layer underneath and then overpaint the details on a layer over the top of the sketch. I try to make it feel as much like I am actually painting as I can by keeping the layers to a minimum once things are established. Toward the end, I will collapse all the layers and just paint on one layer. There are obviously exceptions to this process, but that is basically how I approach it.

I think the fact that I don't get too tricky but rather just let my own hand be present, not resorting to too many tricks, lets my style translate to the digital realm. Hope that answers your question.

Thanks for your in depth reply! So regarding the digital colors …how do you approach them differently/similarly to your acrylic paintings? Do you use a specific set of colors (swatches), do you have a screen where you mix your colors and then pull your paint from there? Do you just freestyle it with the colorwheel? Or....etc? THanks!

Sometimes to get started, I sample from other paintings that I like or if I have really good photos I am working from, I will pull from there, but in the end, I just try to make the colors cohesive on the piece. I usually end up adding other colors into the shadows (which go black in most photography anyway). I have been amazed at how certain colors on a digital palette are not really what you think they are. Most are much more neutral and some are in a completely different family (just sample around a great painting with your eyedropper and you will see what I mean). I have a friend that uses swatches to sample from, but I have not tried that yet. I am going to give it a shot though to see how that works.

The Story So Far

I have been making art for as long as I can remember. These days I work in acrylic paint or Photoshop when creating illustrations for magazines, children's book publishers and advertising clients. I have even been given some cool awards for it. Lately, I am loving oil painting out of doors and for galleries.

Permissions

All images and content are copyright 2010-2015 Greg Newbold and/or their respective owners. For those wishing to use text or images in any traditional print media or for commercial licensing rights, please email me regarding permissions.

If you want to quote this site for use on a non-commercial blog, website, or Facebook page, please feel free as long as you give a credit and link back. Students may also quote text or reference images in their school reports.